The side entrance to the theater is unlocked. I hurry down the center aisle, climb the stairs to the stage, and slide in next to the piano, quietly listening for sounds on the other side of the curtain. When I hear footsteps, I duck inside.
They’ve already passed by, but Caroline’s at the back of the group, and when she sees me, the biggest smile spreads across her face. I smile back as she grabs my arm, pulls me into the pack, and presses her finger to her lips.
Sydney is directly in front of us, walking next to the girl with the super curly hair. They both turn around and wave, but no one says a word as we make our way down the stairs, through the gray hallway labyrinth, and into the janitor’s closet.
It’s so quiet down here. I’m sure everyone can hear me breathing the way Shrink-Sue taught me to: in through the nose, out through the mouth. Caroline must be able to tell I’m nervous because she squeezes my wrist.
AJ holds the door open and we all file in. Everyone gathers at the back of the room. As soon as they hear the dead bolt click into place, the silence disappears and the energy level shifts completely.
The curly blond one says her name is Chelsea. Next to her, the girl with the dark shoulder-length hair and the tiny silver nose ring says, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m Emily.”
“Hi,” I say. “Thanks.” My palms are sweaty and my heart’s pounding, but it feels similar to that moment before I dive off the blocks, so I’m pretty sure it’s positive adrenaline and not the first sign of a panic attack.
“I’m Jessica.” The thin girl with the long black braids raises her hand and whispers, “Welcome.”
There’s only one other guy. He’s short, stocky, and wearing a North Valley High Wrestling tee, so I assume that’s Cameron, AJ’s partner in large-furniture-relocation crime. He adjusts his glasses and waves at me.
I greet Abigail by name and tell her it’s nice to see her again, and she surprises me by pulling me into a tight hug. When she lets me go, Sydney throws one arm over my shoulder and shows everyone our matching letter S pendants.
Caroline stands there, beaming as if this whole moment is going exactly the way she pictured it, and AJ gives me that casual chin tilt of his and says, “You don’t have to read right away today. Listen first, okay?”
“What makes you think I’d just jump up on stage and start reading?” I ask sarcastically, and they laugh.
AJ smiles at me. Then he addresses the group. “We’d better get started.” He takes off for the front of the room and plops down on that orange couch he loves so much.
Everyone trails behind him and settles into various spots on the mismatched furniture, but I hang back, giving myself a moment to reacquaint myself with the room.
The walls look a little bit different now. The colors are brighter, the textures richer. Even the penmanship feels personal, almost intimate, like all these words on all these scraps of paper are here especially for me. I’ve read these poems now. I know these authors. We all share a secret, and it makes me feel small, in a good way, like I’m part of something bigger—something powerful and magical and so special it can’t be explained. I breathe it all in, appreciating everything about these walls, especially their chaos.
AJ’s standing on the stage now with his arms crossed, and I realize he’s watching me, waiting for me to take a seat.
Sydney calls me over, so I sit next to her. I start feeling edgy, but I remind myself that I don’t have to read right away. I should listen first. Listen and clap. That’s it.
Listen. Clap. And breathe.
I turn around and find Caroline on the couch behind me. She gives me a thumbs-up.
Chelsea takes her seat on the stool. Some of the others are wearing dramatic eye shadow, and a few have visible tattoos and piercings, but not Chelsea. Like Caroline, she’s not wearing any makeup at all, and for a moment, I picture what I could do with a little bit of blush and some lip gloss. Maybe some product to shape her curls into well-defined ringlets, and a headband to pull them away from her face.
Then I catch myself.
“I wrote this in my car last week.” Everyone’s quiet while Chelsea unfolds a slip of paper. “This is called ‘Over You.’”
It only took two hundred and forty days
seven hours
twenty-six minutes
and eighteen seconds
But I can finally say it:
I’m over you.
I no longer think about
the way your hips move when you walk
the way your lips move when you read
the way you always took your glove off
before you held my hand so you could feel me.
I’ve completely forgotten about
texts in the middle of the night, saying you love me, miss me
inside jokes no one else thinks are funny
songs that made you want to pull your car over and kiss me immediately.
I can’t remember
how your voice sounds
how your mouth tastes
how your bedroom looks when the sun first comes up.
I can’t recall
exactly what you said that day
what I was wearing
how long it took me to start crying.
It only took two hundred and forty days
seven hours
twenty-six minutes
and eighteen seconds
to wipe you from my memory.
But if you said you wanted me again
today
or tomorrow
or two hundred and forty days
seven hours
twenty-six minutes
and eighteen seconds from now,
I’m sure it would all come back to me.
We’re all silent for a minute. No one moves. No one claps.
Only a minute ago I was sitting here, planning Chelsea’s makeover, and now I’m staring at her, filled with a strange mix of sadness and jealousy. She had all that? I’m sad for her, but I can’t help but feel a little bit sad for myself, too. I want that. She lost it, but at least she had it.
“Hello? Glue stick?” The room erupts into applause, and Sydney stands and tosses her the glue. I’m clapping along, but I’m also watching Chelsea, wondering if she’s going to cry after that cathartic reading. She doesn’t. She throws her shoulders back as she steps proudly off the stage.
“Okay!” I hear the voice at the front of the room and find Abigail bouncing in place, shaking out her arms by her sides. “I still get a little nervous up here,” she says, and it surprises me. Abigail doesn’t seem like the type to get nervous. Then I remember she told me she was the newest one in the group. She runs her hands over her dark pixie cut and looks down at the paper in her hands. “I wrote this in science class last week.”
She holds up a ripped scrap of graph paper, sits on the stool, and takes a couple of deep breaths, like she’s readying herself.
“This is called ‘As If,’” she says, and she shakes out her arms again. When she starts to read, I can see the paper trembling in her hands.
Shy, insecure,
afraid to speak up?
“Act as if,” they say.
Act as if you’re not.
Stand tall when you walk.
Project your voice when you talk.
Raise your hand in class.
Act as if.
Speak your mind. Cut your hair.
Be the part. Look the part.
You can do this.
Just act as if.
If you really knew me,
If you could see inside,
You’d find shy and insecure and afraid.
Acting as if.
Ironic, isn’t it?
The only time I’m not
Acting “as if”?
When I’m on a stage.
I’m the first to start clapping. I can’t help it. That was totally unexpected.
Sydney hands me a glue stick. “Want to do the honors?” she asks. I take it from her, beaming as I toss it underhand to Abigail.
I glance around, wondering who’s next. There doesn’t seem to be any assigned order or anything, and I’m waiting for the next person, ready to watch them be brave. Abigail sticks her poem to the back wall, and then returns to the stage as Cameron and Jessica jump up from their seats to join her.
Jessica walks to the edge. She’s wearing a tank top, and when she turns, I spot a small tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. When she greeted me at the door, she was so soft-spoken that I assumed she was really shy, but now she’s full of energy, and when she opens her mouth to speak, a loud, authoritative voice emerges.
“Okay. I know we’ve been building this up,” she says with her hands on her hips. “You finally get to hear what we’ve been working on, but we need you to help us out.”
She slaps her hands against her legs, starting the beat—Left-left-left-right, left-left-left-right, left-left-left-right—and she keeps it going while the rest of us join in. Left-left-left-right, left-left-left-right.
Then Jessica looks right at me, the beat still thumping in the background, and says, “We’ve been working on this for the last month or so, but it’s still far from perfect. This is the first time we’re performing it down here. So, no judgment.”
I’m not sure why she cares what I think, but I’m kind of flattered. Maybe they’re as nervous about performing in front of me as I am about performing in front of them.
“This is Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven,’” she says, and then steps back in line with the other two. And right on the beat, Cameron takes a step forward and begins speaking in a booming voice.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…
And he keeps going, reciting the poem from memory. On key lines, the other two join in. He finishes with a bold Only this and nothing more, and Jessica instantly picks up where he left off.
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December…
Her words are loud and clear and right on the beat, and I feel chills all over when she delivers the last line: Nameless here for evermore.
That’s when Abigail jumps in.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me…
She’s head-bobbing to the rhythm, singing the verses more than saying them, and the rest of us are still slapping our legs and tapping our feet in unison, keeping the beat, interjecting an encouraging yell now and then.
The three of them say the last line together:
This it is and nothing more.
They stop completely. It takes the rest of us a beat or two to realize it, and we taper off a little more slowly, but then we all stand up, bursting into applause. The three of them hold hands and bow. Abigail curtsies a few more times on her own.
“There’s a lot more to that poem,” Jessica says when the room is silent again. “Fifteen more stanzas to be exact, but we’ll keep working on it.”
Abigail pulls a piece of paper off the stool and AJ tosses her the glue stick. She slides it across the paper and the first three stanzas of “The Raven” occupy a previously empty sliver of space on the wall.
“We have time for one more,” AJ says from his spot up front, and while he doesn’t call me out specifically, I know I’m up.
I don’t think I can do this.
Something brushes against my shoulder and I turn around. Caroline’s leaning against the back of my couch. “Go,” she says, tilting her head toward the stage.
I shake my head at her and mouth, I can’t, but she raises her eyebrows and whispers, “Sam. Don’t think. Just go.”
Before I realize what I’m doing, I hear myself say, “I’ll go.” It’s not loud, but it’s loud enough for Sydney to hear, and that’s all it takes.
“Sam!” she yells, and suddenly everyone’s looking at us. My stomach turns over as I reach down into my pack for my yellow notebook. I take my time finding it.
When I stand, all eyes are on me, and my first instinct is to sit back down, but I force myself to step into the aisle instead. The room is so silent, I can hear my sandals slapping against my heels. I step onto the stage and turn around, giving myself a moment to take in the room. I feel my shoulders relax.
I can do this.
“I wrote this here in Poet’s Corner,” I say, perching myself on the stool. Everyone claps and cheers. The notebook quivers in my hands.
“I have this thing for the number three. I know it’s weird.” I’m expecting a few confused looks, but their expressions don’t change at all.
Okay. The hardest part is over. They know about the threes. Read.
“This poem is called…” I stop. I look at them, one at a time, saying their names in my head to remind myself that they’re no longer strangers.
Sydney, Caroline, AJ, Abigail, Cameron, Jessica.
The next girl takes me a second.
Emily.
But then I look at the girl with the blond curly hair and my mind goes blank. She read first today. Her poem was incredible. Her name starts with a C. When she raises her hand and waves, I realize I’m staring at her, and I feel the adrenaline surge kick in as heat radiates from my chest to the tips of my ears.
Shit.
Now, my breathing feels shallow and uneven again, and I rest my hand on my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick. I fix my gaze on the poem I wrote down here last week, and the words blur and spin. I blink fast and try to focus again. But I can’t.
I can’t do this.
I’m about to make an excuse and step down, when I feel a hand on my left shoulder. I turn my head and see Caroline standing there. I want to say something, but the inside of my mouth feels like I’ve been chewing on a piece of chalk.
“Close your eyes,” she whispers. “Don’t look at anyone. Don’t even look at the paper. Close your eyes and speak.” I start to object, but she cuts me off before I can say anything. “You don’t need to read it. You know this poem cold. Just close your eyes. Don’t think. Go.”
I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. And begin.
“It’s titled ‘Building Better Walls,’” I say.
All these words
On these walls.
Beautiful, inspired, funny,
Because they’re yours.
Words terrify me.
To hear, speak,
To think about.
Wish they didn’t.
I stay quiet.
Keeping words in
Where they fester
and control me.
I’m here now.
Letting them out.
Freeing my words
Building better walls.
I didn’t feel Caroline’s hand leave my shoulder, but when I open my eyes I spot her in the back of the room again. She’s clapping and screaming along with everyone else, and although I’m still shaky, it feels different now, more like euphoria than fear.
Chelsea. Her name comes to me the second I see her smiling.
And suddenly there are glue sticks flying at me from all directions, and I’m laughing as I deflect them. Finally, I catch one in midair.
AJ steps onto the stage and comes in close. “Congratulations,” he says.
I lean in even closer. “I thought you needed to vote?” I whisper.
He nudges me with his elbow. “We just did,” he says, gesturing toward the glue sticks scattered all over the stage. Then AJ points to the one in my hand. “Go ahead. Make it official.”
I run the glue across the back of my poem, and then I step off the stage and walk toward the back of the room, past all of them. I stop right next to Caroline, find an empty spot on the wall, and slap my words against it.
